Irish Premier League

11th September

Crusaders 1 Glentoran 0

Glens Empty Handed Again

Lion Heart Performance By McCann

Roy Coyle's tired waiting for the Glens to strike. A lack of firepower has seen the Glens make a stuttering start to their defence of the title.

Boss Roy Coyle must be getting fed up with having to trot out the "goals win matches" line to reporters these days. After going behind to an early Trevor Smith penalty the Glens threw everything at Crusaders but came away with nothing. In the 3rd minute Trevor Smith was tripped by Captain Chris Walker as Smith had pulled back to shoot. Referee McDonald who was later to have a significent input in the match on behalf of the Glens, who were unfortunate to be denied a penalty themselves later on in the half. Smith calmly stepped up and placed his shot past Armstrong who was unlucky not to keep it out. The larger home crowd compared to usual where  exstatic and had the better possession in the first quarter of the half.

The Glens did eventually get their act together and started to pump the ball forward a lot more than they were doing. The Glens were starting to test the Impressive O'Hare in the Crusaders goals but to no avail, as everything the Glens through at Crusaders they were not getting anywhere. Just after the half hour mark the Glens were harshley dealt with as there were strong claims for a penalty. Tim McCann crossed the ball in from the right and Glen Dunlop clearly jumped up and palmed the ball away to the surprise of everyone in the Ground there was no decision given, a few more confusing decisions followed nearing the half time whistle.

The second half was identical to the First half with the Glens piling on the pressure even more but the closest they came to, was hitting the underside of the bar and even that was off the Man of the Match Darren Lockhart.

Later on in the second half Glen Dunlop was intimidating the away fans jesturing the score among other things, which evented in a beer bottle being thrown onto the pitch which 5 mins later Dunlop spotted and described his disgust in it to referee McDonald, Tim McCann tryed his best to disguise it and again Dunlop made a meal out of it again intimidating like he seems to always do and always seems to get away with. The only positive factors of this disappointing result was the lion heart determination of Tim McCann and Stuart Elliott going on numerous dazzling runs, all in all though a very Poor peformance which could be solved greatly by a dominant striker.

Team

Referee Mr Frank McDonald